Outing the Accidental Authoritarian

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Articles for July 2014

Again, another conversation with a progressive. This one claiming all sorts of credit for the wonderful things done by Progressives, while asserting that conservatives have done nothing.

I’m no conservative on most issues. On the other hand, I have no love for Progressives arguing about how they’re so great, and others just stupid. So here are his comments in block quote, and my replies between.

Abolitionists were a wide range of folks, from classic “liberals” who felt it was immoral for liberty to be violated, to conservative Christians who felt it was unChristian, to those who wanted to eliminate slavery as labor competition — but still embraced racist work laws – as a way to improve white labor conditions. Lincoln was among those.

For Lincoln, Slavery didn’t show up in his Civil War speeches until after a few hundred thousand U.S. soldiers (both sides) were dead over the issue of lobbyists, tariffs, New England corporatism, and secession. Not so glamorous, so he pimped onto slavery… And the U.S. became the only Slave nation to required a civil war / hundreds of thousands of lives to end.

They gave us meat inspection standards…

They codified what legitimate businesses were already doing. Laws passed were political actions promoted as solutions to what was functionally a non-existent problem: contaminated meat. The Act of 1891 was a political action in an environment of massive change in the meat industry – motivated by those who were economically hurt by the massive supply increase of cattle vs. demand, but who further blamed the cost advantages of those who used refrigeration, efficient low cost transportation, and easy distribution. Primarily in Chicago. They demanded Anti Trust action amid false accusations about poor meat quality. Hence, Anti Turst 1890 Sherman Act and the 1891 Meat Inspection Act are tied, and were demanded by CONSERVATIVES AGAINST CHANGE in the meat industry.

As for the 1906 Act, this was partially a political reflex to a populist wave in response to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which, which was exposed to be BS, and intended to inspire a socialist workers movement in the U.S. He never witnessed any of the horrors, or